To Smile in the Face of Chaos
by Amanda Spellings
Summary: Cassandra Wilkins was twelve when she first encountered "the man who smiles". Seven years later he's back and looking for a hostage. When he chooses her, Casey is thrown into a game of survival, forced to protect the little sanity she has left.


**Hey everyone. I had to delete this and re-upload it, which is kind of a pain, but it's all working now!**

**Wow, I really don't have much to say. Basically, this is Casey when she's twelve. It's the story of her first meeting with the Joker. I should be done with her when she's young by the second or third chapter, then it'll jump to her when she's nineteen. This is not a romance, at all. It's going to be dark, but more in a mindfuck kind of way, not tons of blood and gore and grotesque images way. It'll take a few chapters, though. So enjoy.**

**Oh, and if this totally sucks, please tell me why and how I can improve. I hate it when people give really good reviews on really shitty stories just because they don't want to hurt someone's feelings. Tell me what I can do to become a better author, I'm always looking to improve. And I mean, don't just say "wow, man, your story sucks major failure balls", but tell me why it sucks major failure balls and how I can get it to stop doing so. That would be fantastic.**

**Read, review, and enjoy!**

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_Whiz_... The room blended together in a confusing blur of colors and textures as I spun in the old squeaky office chair. Faster and faster, objects turned into mush, mixed with other mushy objects until everything became exotic mashed potatoes. How exciting my life had become, passing the time by spinning around in a musky, smelly basement office of Arkham Asylum itself. Then again, suspension from school at the beginning of sixth grade didn't exactly mean I got access to fun things. No computer, no television, not even a book to settle my boredom. I was stuck sitting in this cement room of an insane asylum, staring at the old doctor sharing the space. Actually, he wasn't the worst way to pass time. His hair was completely white and bushy, and he never left the office, except for bathroom breaks every twenty minutes. Although he no longer did any fieldwork directly helping patients, he still wore his lab coat every day. He hunched over the keyboard, typing slower than a fourth grader. It was fun to watch him try to work the computer, especially in the morning when he couldn't find the power button. Ah, older people with newer technology are always fun to watch. My grandma was the same way.

I spun and spun until I was sure hurling was in my near future, then slammed my feet down and stopped the chair. As happens after twirling for long periods of time, the world tilted. I followed it, leaning to the left on the edge of the seat. Farther and farther I leaned, my body weight following me as I tried to suppress the dizzy spell. I closed my eyes as my head wobbled a bit. Predictably, it chose the left shoulder to fall onto, driving the chair to its limit. As if in slow motion, the wheels on the right lifted off the ground. My eyes flew open and my hands left my side as if on their own, searching for something to keep me from toppling over. Unsuccessful, time returned to normal speed. Myself, the chair, and every bit of me besides my stomach – it dropped out on the way down – toppled to the concrete ground with a sickening crunch.

"Ouch," I groaned, untangling myself from the wheels and rubbing my sore face. I slammed, cheek first, onto the floor. My whole left side was in pain, and I suspected a bruise would form just below my eye. Oh joy.

I heard a squeak in one corner and a groan from the other. The old man, whose name I cannot remember, turned in his chair to stare at me just as the noisy door on the other side of the room opened, and my sister came tumbling in, arms overflowing with files. I struggled to my feet, picking up the chair and leaning against the back of it as soon as I set it up straight.

"What have you been up to?" My sister asked suspiciously, eying me behind black-rimmed glasses. She dropped the pile onto the desk clumsily, not bothering to pick up the files that slid to the floor.

"Nothing…" I said innocently, spinning the chair slightly from side to side. "What are you doing?"

She was panting a bit, a few strands of dirty blonde hair sticking to her forehead. We looked nearly identical, despite the twelve-year age difference. We had the same square face, with squinty brown eyes and pointy noses. Our lips naturally curved up at the corners, so our frowns always looked painful and unnatural. The only significant difference between us was her bottle-blonde hair and thick glasses, and my dark brown hair and 20/20 vision. Besides that, even our widow's peak ended at the same spots on our forehead. "What do you think I'm doing?"

"Working," I concluded dully, noting her exhausted state and armful of papers. "That's exciting…" She slumped down in the chair and put her head in her arms, which rested on the desk. I glanced at the clock above her computer, something I'd been doing every couple minutes all day. Three-thirty five. She must have just gotten out of an appointment.

"I'm so ready for this day to be over," she said after a few seconds, sighing and pushing herself up.

"Yeah, me too, there's nothing to do here."

She shot me a dirty look, eyes narrowed and a frown forming, stretching her cheeks at an unnatural curve. She looked back to the computer and awoke it from its sleep. "If you stayed out of trouble like you were supposed to, you wouldn't be stuck here all week…" She said this quietly, probably rolling her eyes with her back to me. I looked down, crossing my arms and shuffling my feet. I had nothing to say to that. All weekend she gave me trouble for that one little fight I got into. Not that this was my first fight, but she really seemed to find this one more disturbing. I was out of school for a week, not my longest sentence, but probably my hardest. This was, after all, the beginning of middle school, and with a higher grade my workload also increased. Therefore, my friend was bringing by work every day after school, which must be completed, for credit, by the time I went back.

"Anyway," she continued, probably taking my silence for guilt. It wasn't guilt I felt, more an annoying weight in my lower intestines. "I have a job for you."

"Really?" I asked excitedly. Finally, something to do that didn't involve falling over or stalking the old doctor. "What is it, what do you need?" She smiled mockingly at me and waved at the papers.

"I need you to help me sort through these files. Dr. Norton just retired, leaving me with all his old patients. This is great, except he wasn't a very organized person. Now I have all these new patients mixed together, an appointment with the first one in an hour, and I don't know a thing about him." She picked up the first folder lying on top of the mess, labeled "Adams, Michael" and opened it. "Oh, great!" She threw a hand in the air in emphasis and shook her head. "One paper, there is one paper on this patient in the entire folder!" She took the sheet out of it, and then shook the empty file upside-down. "Great, just damn great. The rest must be in here somewhere." She glared at the mountain of papers before beginning to riffle through the pile. I stared at her for a moment before diving in to help.

She was in one of her states again. The stress of extra work and my constant presence must have pushed her over the edge a bit. I was used to it; she would run to the office for a few hours or frantically type up data on her computer if she freaked out like this at home. But watching her in action at the one place she really got off steam was a bit shocking. Her hair was slowly coming undone and her arms moved so fast they were almost a blur. She kept telling me to hurry up, or sort through that pile over there, or keep looking! It wasn't until she calmed down a bit that I dared speak, for fear of angering the beast that had possessed my sister.

"Who is it you have an appointment with?" I asked cautiously, not wanting her to snap at me, but also curious. She ran her hand through her hair, realized it was a complete mess, and redid the clip while scanning over a patient's information on the computer.

"Hm? Oh, uh..." She switched her attention to her schedule, frowning again. Her finger followed her gaze across the page until it came to a stop on the correct date and time. "The J…" She froze, staring ahead, one hand still in her hair and her mouth parted, as if she caught herself before saying a dirty word. "No one, it's confidential." She closed the appointment book and cleared her throat. "Why don't you stop working, I can handle the rest."

"No, I'm ok, this is the only thing there is to do-"

"Really, I insist." She snatched the folder I was filling out of my hand and clutched it to her chest. She tried to smile, but her flushed skin and insane hair only made me recoil. She fished a dollar out of the desk and handed it to me. "Here, take this and go get yourself something from the vending machine. It's down the hall and to the left, in the last unmarked room on the right before the stairs. It's got a vending machine, a couch and a television. You can watch TV until four thirty, then I want you back here."

"Uh, ok…" I hesitated, staring at her to make sure she wasn't about to take the money back and set me to work again. I backed out slowly, holding the bill with two hands until I found the door and hurried out of it, closing it gently behind me. I stared at the wall across the hall, chewing my lower lip and picking at the edge of the dollar. That was weird. It almost seemed like she didn't want me to know something. Which didn't make sense, because I wasn't familiar with anybody here, anyway, so what harm would a name make? I shrugged at my thoughts and started down the hall, turning left at the end.

"Last unmarked door… on the right? Or was it the left? No, I think it was the right. At the top of the stairs? Yeah…" I talked my way towards my destination, trying to keep her confusing directions clear in my head. I wasn't used to being in such a creepy, weird place. I'd only come to work with her a few times, each time just to grab a file or something, and each time I stuck by her side. Now I was sent through the maze of the building, on a journey to find snacks and a TV set. Well, it wasn't as intense as I made it out to be. I reached the stairs and began my ascend. When I reached the top I only grew more confused. Left or right were my two options, not straight. Must be right, I thought, remembering her saying something about that. I scanned the wall for an unmarked door, any unmarked door. Each said Dr. Something or Officer Somebody. At least until the end of the hall, where, straight ahead of me, stood a heavy metal door with automatic controls and an ID scanner. It was unmarked, but probably didn't house a snack machine. Curious, despite the more intelligent part of me objecting, I approached the door. With no handle, I guessed the only way in was with the ID my sister kept around her neck. I reached for the door, eager to get to the other side just to see what was hidden. What needed that much protection? Well, this was a crazy hospital, so it probably imprisoned some insane person. Either way, I wanted to see what was on the other side, just have a quick peek…

"Hey!" I jumped about a foot and pulled my hand away fast, clutching it to my chest as if just burned. I turned quickly to see a man scurrying towards me wearing a light blue security uniform. He was tall and dark, with a strict voice and a stern, demanding expression. "You can't go in there." He reached me and looked me over, taking in my youth. "Who are you?" The initial shock of someone trying to break into a high security room must have worn off to be replaced by the shock of that someone being a twelve-year-old girl.

"Uh, sorry, I'm trying to find the vending machine. I'm Casey, Casey Wilkins. My sister's Alex Wilkins, she works here."

"Ah, I see. You didn't really expect there to be a vending machine in there, did you?" He questioned me with an expression of puzzled amusement, his features softening.

"Well, I mean… uh… um…" My mind was racing, trying to come up with a suitable excuse, one he would actually believe. "I don't usually come here, ya know, and I figured that everything was kind of on lockdown, and I could just get on through this door and enjoy my snack safely. But, I guess I took a wrong turn somewhere along the way." I made a snapping sound with my tongue against my teeth and rocked on my heels, waiting for him to reply. I looked at him through my lashes, wondering if he believed my lie.

"Right." He seemed to be humoring me. Maybe he believed me, maybe not, I couldn't tell. "You said you're Alex's sister?" I nodded. "I know her, nice lady, bit of a workaholic." I chuckled.

"Yeah, just a bit." He smiled at me and nodded his head back to the stairs.

"Come on, I'll take you back to her office. You really shouldn't be wondering the halls alone, anyway. This place can turn dangerous if you don't know where you're going. It's scary to think about, but better safe than sorry. You don't want to wander into the Joker's hallway like you almost did."

"The Joker?" I asked as we started down the stairs, surprised that he mentioned him. "He's not here, is he? Alex said he's at a hospital in Metropolis to get him away from the Batman."

"He was," the officer sighed. "Came back here for better treatment around a month ago. Already been through three doctors. This last one was his best, but Dr. Norton just retired, unexpectedly I might add. He probably got too stressed out, working on the Joker's case. Hopefully his new doctor will be able to help. I wouldn't get my hopes up, though. This guy's as crazy as you can get." I gulped, feeling fear trickle down my spine.

"He hasn't hurt anyone, though, has he? I mean, not since he's been here."

The guard nodded weakly. "Put two security guards in the hospital, and stabbed one doctor with pencil in her chest. It missed all major arteries but she was on bed rest for a couple weeks. That was his first doctor. The Joker's unpredictable, crazy, and smart, the three most dangerous qualities we look out for in our patients. That's why you can't go roaming the hospital any more, ok?" We reached the office door. The guard looked at me sternly. "I'm Officer Chase if you need anything, but I don't want to see you walking around by yourself again." I guessed he would talk to my sister later, about how much I needed to be disciplined. I nodded and hurried into the office, my chest and head heavy with everything he just told me.

My sister wasn't there, and neither was the old guy, who was probably on another bathroom break. I sat in the chair, wondering where Alex was off too, and wondering if she was all right. Of course she's all right, I thought bitterly. She's done this job every day for two years and she's never gotten hurt. But why didn't she tell me the Joker was back? And did she get his case as part of the bundle of cases Dr. Norton left behind? Was he going to hurt her? No, of course not. She'd stop treating him if she felt threatened. No, I decided, she wouldn't. She's probably proud to have such a big case.

"Urgh." I clutched my aching head, rubbed the bruise forming on my face, and leaned back in the chair. "It's going to be a long week."

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**The new chapter should be up pretty soon, hopefully tomorrow but possibly monday. Thanks for reading!**


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